Then, the world resolved.

He listened. Beneath the sound of the virtual rain, he heard whispers. A thousand tiny, overlapping voices. Some were moaning. Some were laughing. One was reciting a grocery list.

She leaned in. Her lips brushed the plastic shell of the headset, right over his ear.

He turned. The room was empty.

He shouldn’t have been awake. He had a deadline in the morning, a presentation about quarterly earnings that would bore even himself. But insomnia had him in its jaws again, and boredom had driven him to the deepest, dustiest corner of an old VR forum.

“Stay a while. You’re in the collection now.”

But for the rest of the night, every time he closed his eyes, he smelled jasmine tea. And he heard a woman’s voice, soft as static, whispering:

The notification popped up on Kenji’s phone at 11:47 PM. A small, unmarked file labeled .

He stepped forward in the virtual space. His virtual feet made no sound on the shag carpet.

“Sorry,” Kenji heard himself say. The VR was puppeting his responses. He felt a chill. He hadn’t chosen that dialogue.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You won’t be lonely. I’ve been collecting for twenty years. And now… you’re my 147th.”